TREASURER CONFIRMS A ‘DO NOTHING’ APPROACH ON HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

Posted by Katy Gallagher179.40sc on February 18, 2016

Scott Morrison has confirmed that the Turnbull Liberals have no plan to address housing affordability.

Scott Morrison, in response to a question at the National Press Club, said that housing affordability is a direct result of supply and demand factors but failed to provide any solutions thereby confining more than a million households to rental or mortgage stress and locking many more out of the possibility of ever becoming home owners.

In an area that requires national leadership the Turnbull Government and its three different housing ministers have refused to show any leadership despite independent data sets consistently confirming the extent of the affordability challenge across Australia.

ABS data reports that there are 657,000 low income households across Australia living in rental stress and 318,000 low income households in mortgage stress in 2013-2014. At the same time 185,000 households remain on waiting lists for public or community housing across the country.

As the great Australian dream of home ownership starts to slip from the grasp of many Australians the Abbott-Turnbull governments' only response to date has worked directly against improving the supply of affordable housing for these households.

Since 2013 they have:

abolished the National Housing Supply Council

abolished the National Rental Affordability Scheme and cancelled Round five of that scheme

cut funding to Homelessness Australia, National Shelter and Community Housing Federation of Australia

cut $132 million from homelessness funding

axed the Housing Help for Seniors program

disbanded the COAG select Council on Housing and Homelessness.

This government has failed consistently over the past two and a half years to show any interest in housing affordability and today's speech confirmed that this approach is set to continue.

This is bad news indeed for the more than a million households who are finding it difficult to make ends meet after paying their rent or their mortgage.

THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2016

Senator Katy Gallagher is Labor's Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness and the Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on State and Territory Relations.